No Foreign Observers to Monitor Iraq Vote

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28599-2005Jan22.html

When 1 million Palestinians voted for a successor to Yasser Arafat, 800 international observers poured into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to monitor the polling. Former president Jimmy Carter and former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt led one team. A former French prime minister led another, and there were two U.S. congressional delegations.

When 8 million Afghans voted in October, at least 122 international observers from across Europe and Asia monitored the presidential election -- and declared it an "orderly and transparent process."

But in Iraq, where 14 million people are eligible to vote, the elections next week may have only one outsider from the hastily organized International Mission for Iraqi Elections to evaluate the balloting. If reluctant governments change their minds at the last minute about letting their officials go to Iraq, a handful of others may show up. But, even then, none is likely to tour polling stations or to be publicly identified, mission and U.S. officials said.

The violence in Iraq means that its elections will be the first among dozens of transitional elections over the past two decades -- since democracy began to sweep through eastern Europe, the old Soviet Union, Latin America and Africa -- that will not have an international observer force touring polling stations to assess the vote's credibility, election experts say.

There will be no neutral outside group deployed across Iraq to determine whether voters are impeded, ballot boxes are stuffed, any party tries to interfere with the process or votes are counted fairly. No congressional delegation will monitor the polls, and the European Union announced last week that it had declined an invitation from Iraq to send observers. The Carter Center, which has monitored more than 50 elections overseas, also decided not to send observers.

[sutz12]

1. Just send over a boatload of Diebold machines....

we know they're reliable. :sarcasm:

[mtnester]

3. Hell, in Mexico they just threw them in the GARBAGE DUMP

did not even need Diebold.

Mexico to U.S.: "I learned it from you, OK?!! I learned it from watching you..."

Iraq to U.S.:"I learned it from you, OK?!! I learned it from watching you..."

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Iraq is quickly becoming 'Americanized'. No one to determine if "voters

voters are impeded, ballot boxes are stuffed, any party tries to interfere with the process or votes are counted fairly."

Sounds just like our elections!